The four Kansas City-area chapters of the Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom have engaged in a local arm of a national charitable effort for the past three years called Sadaqa/Tzedakah Day to help women and children in need who celebrate Christmas.
Sadaqa in Arabic and tzedakah in Hebrew mean “voluntary charity.” Sadaqa/Tzedakah Day falls on Christmas Day or sometimes earlier in December to better allow for people’s holiday schedules.
The spirit of the day embraces the mission of the Sisterhood (sosspeace.org) “to find commonality and bridge Jews, Muslims and Christians through multigenerational volunteerism,” said Sheila Sonnenschein, a member of the organization’s national advisory board and of the first of four chapters in Kansas City. She also is the liaison among the four chapters and the national group, and she was the Jewish co-leader of this year’s Sadaqa/Tzedakah Day on Dec. 9.
“This Christmas effort is a tangible way for Jews and Muslims, many if not most of whom don’t celebrate Christmas, to help Christians and others who do,” said Sonnenschein, who lives in Overland Park and is a member of Congregation Beth Shalom.
Last year, the day’s beneficiary was Hope Lodge and in 2017 it was the Ronald McDonald House. Both received meals on Christmas Day. This year’s beneficiaries were a local Muslim women’s shelter and SAFEHOME, an organization that supports survivors of domestic violence.
Volunteers with all four of the Sisterhood’s local chapters and some of their children met Dec. 9 at the Overland Park home of Samira Zaman, the Muslim co-leader for this year’s Sadaqa/Tzedakah Day. They spent time getting acquainted with one another over tea and cookies and then assembled toiletry kits for SAFEHOME and the Muslim women’s shelter. They also included in the kits some blankets, sheets and pillows for SAFEHOME and children’s toys for the Muslim women’s shelter, as the organizations had requested. Zaman was amazed at the number of items the volunteers had brought for the kits.
Her motivation for getting involved in the Sisterhood was born of her desire to break down walls between people and help those in need.
“I thought rather than sitting on the sidelines, I wanted to contribute to a better understanding of … ‘the other,’ and when the Sisterhood fell into my lap (I realized) it would be the perfect opportunity to tell my own story rather than someone else telling it,” she said.
Linda Goldstein, a lifelong Overland Park resident and a member of Kehilath Israel Synagogue, joined the Sisterhood about two years ago. She and several of her family members plan to help prepare brunch for the women and children at SAFEHOME on Christmas Day. She, like Zaman, is drawn both by the camaraderie among members and the rewards of the charitable work they do.
“Getting to know these ladies on a grass roots level just makes my heart swell,” Goldstein said. “I don’t need the recognition (for her charitable work). We need more love in this world — that’s for sure.”
The Sisterhood has been striving to share that love locally in a variety of other ways, too. Some members volunteer weekly at an elementary school in Kansas City, Missouri, to tutor students in math and reading, and they give the students Christmas gifts such as socks, hats and gloves, Sonnenschein said. Volunteers also participated in a turkey drive with the Crescent Peace Society and the Kansas City Interfaith Youth Alliance on Thanksgiving this year.
The Sisterhood’s Building Bridges Trips are intended to foster civil rights, and the trips inspired some of the volunteers to tutor students. Sonnenschein and other volunteers traveled to Bosnia and Albania in 2016; Azerbaijan in 2017; and Atlanta, Memphis and three cities in Alabama in 2018.
The Sisterhood was founded in 2010. It has about 160 chapters across the country, including 10 teen chapters, Sonnenschein said, and it has 50 to 60 chapters in various stages of formation at any given time.
Ameneh Paziresh of Leawood is the Muslim co-leader for the second Kansas City-area chapter, founded in 2016, and a member of the Islamic Center of Johnson County. She helped with this year’s Sadaqa/Tzedakah Day.
Paziresh volunteers for this cause, she said, because she enjoys it “and I think that I and a lot of people like me have really been blessed and want to pay back.”
“In our faith, it’s one of the most important signs of righteousness,” Paziresh said of voluntary charity, “... to give of your wealth in spite of your love for it to the needy. … In our faith, even a kind smile is a charity. … It is as if you give a good loan, and it is paid multifold in full.”
